Near the great mouth of Little Cottonwood Canyon, there's a route—ostensibly an easy one—one of the single most popular and consistently highly-rated climbs in the world. It's called Beckey's Wall, but it's named for a guy named Fred. Fred Beckey. He didn't die there. He just climbed up it first.

It's a three-pitch climb, meaning you climb the length of the rope, about fifty meters, set up a new belay station, climb another rope length, set up another belay station, and then you finish and rapell off. It's all very commando-chic. You get to use all the nifty gear, harnesses, and carabiners that make you feel like a special forces soldier. You get to act like it's no big deal—this ascending vertical faces of rock with nothing but will power, muscle, and hubris—nothing but glorified nuts, bolts and a string to save your life. You get to use the lingo, too, and act like it's no big deal. If you take a big fall—and don't die—you say That was a whipper! If you take a big fall and do die, if any one is willing to talk about it, you say he cratered. You call the gear you use to anchor the rope protection, or pro. If the placement for the pro is good, you say it's bomber. It's decidedly a boy's language.

When I reached my friend Travis, belaying me from above on Beckey's Wall, it was cool and shaded where he was suspended, but I could see his face was shiny with sweat—the cold kind that beads on your forehead, hanging in anticipation on the prow of your eyebrows until it suddenly pitches itself down over your eyes.

He adjusted the rope in his ATC. I had forgotten the fact that not only was he suspended from whatever it was he was clipped to, but all of my weight was on it as well.

"The set-up," he said. He tried to swallow. He blinked. "Yeah, the set-up is—well I would call it marginal."

I hadn't pegged Travis for a wordsmith, but he used a poet's precision when he came up with "marginal." It too lacked the childish gregariousness of most other climbing lingo.

"The issue," he said, "is not so much whether it'll hold us now. The issue is what happens if I take a lead fall when I'm trying to place the next piece of gear."

We talked it over briefly and decided the wise thing to do would be to back off and leave the climb for a day when we felt more like one of the supposed thousands of folks who have climbed this route before and determined that it was just a lovely little Sunday stroll. Fred Beckey, who pioneered this route, supposedly would do it drunk, in the dark, and in hiking boots.

Two weeks later, the piton blew, and a different pair of climbers died, nothing but a margin—like the tiny little white buffer around this story—separating them from us.

In May 1908 a monument to Hirini Whaanga was erected in the Salt Lake City cemetery. The stone marked the end of a long trip for Hirini Whaanga. He was born on the eastern coast of New Zealand in 1828 where he eventually succeeded his father as chief of the Ngatikahungunu Tribe of Maoris, the strongest tribe of the island according to his monument. When Mormon missionaries arrived in New Zealand in 1882 Chief Whaanga welcomed them with gifts and hospitality, winning the respect of his proselytizing guests. And the missionaries apparently made an impression on Chief Whaanga and his people. There were 144 baptisms recorded in one year of missionary John Clarence Stewart's diary, and 220 mentioned in a letter to his mother. Stewart baptized Chief Whaanga at Nuhaka on November 30, 1884. [See Footnote i.]

In June 1894, feeling it his duty to ensure his people's salvation, Chief Whaanga left his tribe and New Zealand to perform spiritual rites in Utah's Mormon temples. Despite Whaanga's commitment to Mormonism he met with a slight obstacle on his pilgrimage to Zion. At the time the First Presidency of the Mormon Church discouraged native converts from immigrating to Utah. Missionaries in New Zealand were told not to encourage emigration, "but to strive earnestly to thoroughly ground the saints in the Faith." [See Footnote ii.] Whaanga, Hirini's wife, and several family members traveling with them were diverted from their Salt Lake City pilgrimage. For being so grounded in their faith as to leave their home and journey to Zion, they ended up in Kanab, a city in southern Utah, where they lived with John C. Stewart.

The man who baptized the Maori Chief, though, was not the most hospitable host to his convert. Stewart profited from persuading Whaanga to invest his money poorly. Zion's Maori Association, a group of former missionaries to New Zealand, eventually intervened and moved Whaanga and his family to Salt Lake City and provided them with a home. Whaanga stayed in Salt Lake until 1898 when, at the age of 69 or 70 he returned to New Zealand on a mission for the Mormon Church. Whaanga was no longer a leader but he still maintained influence in his attempts to teach the people in his old home a new faith and he converted many of his people.

Whaanga returned to his home in Salt Lake City in April 1899. He left his own country for good, where he was a chief of royal descent, to live instead as a disciple of the Mormon Church in the middle of the desert. After his death on October 17, 1905, Elders of the Zion's Maori Association placed a monument over his grave honoring him as a revered chief and leader, a true Christian, and a beloved friend. Whaanga's place in his royal line is forever tied to Salt Lake by this stone.

In 1893 Albert Fisher had a mansion constructed in a sparsely populated neighborhood on Salt Lake City’s west side near the banks of the Jordan River. Fisher, who had immigrated to Utah from Seebach, Baden, Germany in 1881, chose the location on 200 South because of its proximity to his work. The two-story, twelve-room house, designed in the Victorian Eclectic style, stood a stone’s throw from what eventually became the largest brewery in Utah, the A. Fisher Brewing Company. And though the Fishers and the brewery had the neighborhood somewhat to themselves for a while, around the turn of the century Albert, his wife Alma, and their five children were living in the midst of a well-populated residential subdivision.

Like his neighborhood, Fisher’s beer business was booming at the turn of the century. By 1905 Fisher employed 50 people and was brewing 75,000 barrels to distribute to the many taverns he owned in the Salt Lake Valley.1 A. Fisher Brewing, along with the Salt Lake Brewing Company, was bigger than Coors. Such skillful brewing and entrepreneurial know-how made Albert Fisher an industry titan and Fisher Mansion matched his titanic status in the brewing industry and in Salt Lake.

Further proof of its strength and popularity as a business, A. Fisher Brewing was the only brewery to reopen in Utah after the repeal of Prohibition. Fisher had constantly struggled with morality laws that hindered his business. He even ran ads saying, “Beer drinking people are a home-loving, moral people.”2 Such a statement might be seen as a direct address to Salt Lake’s dominant religion, the home-loving, moral Mormons. Despite its successes and popularity though, Fisher's business couldn’t escape Prohibition and was forced to close from 1918 to 1933. After reopening, the brewery remained a viable business until 1957 when A. Fisher Brewing, run by Albert’s son Frank, succumbed to its competition and was bought out by Lucky Lager in San Francisco.

The Fisher Mansion, on the other hand, has remained a well-used and well-loved structure in Salt Lake for 120 years, adapting to new functions and changing to fulfill the needs of the surrounding community. For its first 51 years members of the Fisher family inhabited the house. In 1945, Albert and Alma’s daughter Alice and her family, the Davidsons, leased the mansion to the Catholic Church. The residence became a convent for Our Lady Queen of Peace and Our Lady of Victory Missionary Sisters. Then in 1970 the mansion became St. Mary’s Home for Men, an alcohol and drug abuse treatment facility. The home accommodated 41 men, providing them with shelter, food, clothing, counseling, and job assistance.

Though its surroundings have become much less residential over the years, in part due to construction of I-80 for which many homes were demolished, Fisher Mansion still stands. Salt Lake City purchased Fisher Mansion in 2006 to preserve the building and complete the Jordan River Trail. The City has solicited the public’s input to decide the mansion's function, but it’s clear that whatever that may be, the 120-year-old mansion will remain an important Salt Lake City site. From housing a beer baron and his family, to providing treatment for alcohol and drug abuse, throughout its history Fisher Mansion has proven its adaptability and firmly established itself as a community center on Salt Lake’s west side.

"In the 1850s, the area outside the crowded city—from 900 South to 2700 South—was called 'Big Field.' People built houses, had farms, grew gardens, raised chickens, and milked cows in this large, open space. Residents grew crops such as wheat, cotton, sugar cane, potatoes, strawberries, apples, grapes, and melons."

About the writers, and about 5 Blocks:

Coinciding with the 100 year anniversary of Hawthorne Elementary School, students in Sheri Sohm's 4th grade Extended Learning Program explored the neighborhood surrounding their school in an exciting discovery of the past and present. They examined buildings and structures, natural landscapes, and small things typically overlooked. Searching with their five senses, students explored their neighborhood as a living organism where people live and affect their community: a dynamic place of change.

Students met with members of the community, posing the question: Why do places change? The students uncovered how community decisions are made, and how they can become more actively involved in shaping their neighborhood.

After walking around their school and the surrounding Liberty Wells neighborhood, each student was assigned a house to closely examine. After taking photographs and completing a series of drawings, every student created a three-dimensional artistic vision of the house.

In groups, students researched and prepared materials for the historical sites: Wilford Woodruff Houses, First Encampment Park, Perkins' Subdivision, and Chase Mill. The interesting facts they discovered are written on labels throughout the UMFA's 2012-13 5 Blocks installation, an exhibition of youth artwork created in collaboration with UMFA educators by students at Hawthorne Elementary (Salt Lake City School District) and Granger High School (Granite School District). By studying the visual stories in images from the Utah State Archives and Historical Society, students developed a deeper understanding of the places that once existed and the people who lived in the area.

"The Chase Mill gets its name from Isaac Chase, who farmed the land where the mill was built in 1852. It is the oldest standing industrial building in Utah. During the famine of 1856-57, the mill gave many families in Salt Lake City free grain that helped them to survive."

About the writers, and about 5 Blocks:

Coinciding with the 100 year anniversary of Hawthorne Elementary School, students in Sheri Sohm's 4th grade Extended Learning Program explored the neighborhood surrounding their school in an exciting discovery of the past and present. They examined buildings and structures, natural landscapes, and small things typically overlooked. Searching with their five senses, students explored their neighborhood as a living organism where people live and affect their community: a dynamic place of change.

Students met with members of the community, posing the question: Why do places change? The students uncovered how community decisions are made, and how they can become more actively involved in shaping their neighborhood.

After walking around their school and the surrounding Liberty Wells neighborhood, each student was assigned a house to closely examine. After taking photographs and completing a series of drawings, every student created a three-dimensional artistic vision of the house.

In groups, students researched and prepared materials for the historical sites: Wilford Woodruff Houses, First Encampment Park, Perkins' Subdivision, and Chase Mill. The interesting facts they discovered are written on labels throughout the UMFA's 2012-13 5 Blocks installation, an exhibition of youth artwork created in collaboration with UMFA educators by students at Hawthorne Elementary (Salt Lake City School District) and Granger High School (Granite School District). By studying the visual stories in images from the Utah State Archives and Historical Society, students developed a deeper understanding of the places that once existed and the people who lived in the area.

"First Encampment Park was created in 1997 to honor the pioneers who arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in 1847. The first group of pioneers to enter the valley included 109 men, 3 women, and 8 children. They had to push their way through high grass before they found an area suitable to set up camp for the night. The park marks the spot where they spent their first night, and the names of some of the pioneers are inscribed on the granite rocks.

William ClaytonClayton was from England and invented the roadometer to calculate the distance the wagons traveled each day. The roadometer was an early version of the odometer.

Thomas Cloward

Cloward was a shoemaker who made the first pair of shoes in the Salt Lake Valley. A catalog listed the price of a pair of his ladies shoes at $7.50. That would cost $186 today!

O. Porter RockwellRockwell was Brigham Young's bodyguard during their trek to the West. After the pioneers's arrival he became the first deputy marshal. Rockwell was famous for his skills with shooting and once said, 'I never killed anyone who didn't need killing.'"

About the writers, and about 5 Blocks:

Coinciding with the 100 year anniversary of Hawthorne Elementary School, students in Sheri Sohm's 4th grade Extended Learning Program explored the neighborhood surrounding their school in an exciting discovery of the past and present. They examined buildings and structures, natural landscapes, and small things typically overlooked. Searching with their five senses, students explored their neighborhood as a living organism where people live and affect their community: a dynamic place of change.

Students met with members of the community, posing the question: Why do places change? The students uncovered how community decisions are made, and how they can become more actively involved in shaping their neighborhood.

After walking around their school and the surrounding Liberty Wells neighborhood, each student was assigned a house to closely examine. After taking photographs and completing a series of drawings, every student created a three-dimensional artistic vision of the house. In groups, students researched and prepared materials for the historical sites: Wilford Woodruff Houses, First Encampment Park, Perkins' Subdivision, and Chase Mill. The interesting facts they discovered are written on labels throughout the UMFA's 2012-13 5 Blocks installation, an exhibition of youth artwork created in collaboration with UMFA educators by students at Hawthorne Elementary (Salt Lake City School District) and Granger High School (Granite School District). By studying the visual stories in images from the Utah State Archives and Historical Society, students developed a deeper understanding of the places that once existed and the people who lived in the area.

"Hawthorne Elementary School was built in 1912 and was named after writer Nathaniel Hawthorne. The school was built when the area became more populated as suburbs took the place of rural farmland. 462 students attended the school in the first year. In 1988, the school building was torn down and rebuilt. Each student at that time was given a brick from the old building to remember the school. In 2012, the school celebrated its 100 year anniversary!"

About the writers, and about 5 Blocks:

Coinciding with the 100 year anniversary of Hawthorne Elementary School, students in Sheri Sohm's 4th grade Extended Learning Program explored the neighborhood surrounding their school in an exciting discovery of the past and present. They examined buildings and structures, natural landscapes, and small things typically overlooked. Searching with their five senses, students explored their neighborhood as a living organism where people live and affect their community: a dynamic place of change.

Students met with members of the community, posing the question: Why do places change? The students uncovered how community decisions are made, and how they can become more actively involved in shaping their neighborhood.

After walking around their school and the surrounding Liberty Wells neighborhood, each student was assigned a house to closely examine. After taking photographs and completing a series of drawings, every student created a three-dimensional artistic vision of the house. In groups, students researched and prepared materials for the historical sites: Wilford Woodruff Houses, First Encampment Park, Perkins' Subdivision, and Chase Mill. The interesting facts they discovered are written on labels throughout the UMFA's 2012-13 5 Blocks installation, an exhibition of youth artwork created in collaboration with UMFA educators by students at Hawthorne Elementary (Salt Lake City School District) and Granger High School (Granite School District). By studying the visual stories in images from the Utah State Archives and Historical Society, students developed a deeper understanding of the places that once existed and the people who lived in the area.

"Liberty Park is one of the earliest and largest urban parks in Utah. Salt Lake City purchased the land from Brigham Young Estate in 1881. The park was dedicated on June 17, 1882.

"Liberty Park is laid out on the original site of the Isaac Chase Farm and Mill. Chase had been assigned the plot in the "Big Field Survey" of 1847, which distributed farm plots to the first pioneer settlers. In 1860, Brigham Young purchased the farm and mill."

About the writers, and about 5 Blocks:

Coinciding with the 100 year anniversary of Hawthorne Elementary School, students in Sheri Sohm's 4th grade Extended Learning Program explored the neighborhood surrounding their school in an exciting discovery of the past and present. They examined buildings and structures, natural landscapes, and small things typically overlooked. Searching with their five senses, students explored their neighborhood as a living organism where people live and affect their community: a dynamic place of change.

Students met with members of the community, posing the question: Why do places change? The students uncovered how community decisions are made, and how they can become more actively involved in shaping their neighborhood.

After walking around their school and the surrounding Liberty Wells neighborhood, each student was assigned a house to closely examine. After taking photographs and completing a series of drawings, every student created a three-dimensional artistic vision of the house.

In groups, students researched and prepared materials for the historical sites: Wilford Woodruff Houses, First Encampment Park, Perkins' Subdivision, and Chase Mill. The interesting facts they discovered are written on labels throughout the UMFA's 2012-13 5 Blocks installation, an exhibition of youth artwork created in collaboration with UMFA educators by students at Hawthorne Elementary (Salt Lake City School District) and Granger High School (Granite School District). By studying the visual stories in images from the Utah State Archives and Historical Society, students developed a deeper understanding of the places that once existed and the people who lived in the area.

"These houses, once known as a "Streetcar Suburb," represent one of the first subdivisions created in Salt Lake City in the 1890s. Many people moved away from the busy city to enjoy the clean air and natural landscape. The houses were built with modern features such as indoor plumbing, electric lights, and furnaces.

"Electric streetcars connected these suburbs to the city, a long journey by horse and carriage on dirt roads. In 1881, Salt Lake City was one of the first five American cities to have electric power. By the 1900s, the valley was covered in streetcar tracks that reached almost every neighborhood.

"'This territory was all farming country, and there were very few houses. I drove up Seventh East with my family and had a cow tied behind the buggy. I remember that there were only three houses between Ninth South and what now is Seventeenth South," said George Arbuckle."

About the writers, and about 5 Blocks:

Coinciding with the 100 year anniversary of Hawthorne Elementary School, students in Sheri Sohm's 4th grade Extended Learning Program explored the neighborhood surrounding their school in an exciting discovery of the past and present. They examined buildings and structures, natural landscapes, and small things typically overlooked. Searching with their five senses, students explored their neighborhood as a living organism where people live and affect their community: a dynamic place of change.

Students met with members of the community, posing the question: Why do places change? The students uncovered how community decisions are made, and how they can become more actively involved in shaping their neighborhood.

After walking around their school and the surrounding Liberty Wells neighborhood, each student was assigned a house to closely examine. After taking photographs and completing a series of drawings, every student created a three-dimensional artistic vision of the house.In groups, students researched and prepared materials for the historical sites: Wilford Woodruff Houses, First Encampment Park, Perkins' Subdivision, and Chase Mill. The interesting facts they discovered are written on labels throughout the UMFA's 2012-13 5 Blocks installation, an exhibition of youth artwork created in collaboration with UMFA educators by students at Hawthorne Elementary (Salt Lake City School District) and Granger High School (Granite School District). By studying the visual stories in images from the Utah State Archives and Historical Society, students developed a deeper understanding of the places that once existed and the people who lived in the area.

"Since 1912, Salt Lake City has had a city zoo. The first zoo was at Liberty Park until 1931, when it became Hogle Zoo and moved to its current home. In 1916, the zoo bought an elephant named Alice. School children in the area collected money and raised $3,250 to buy Alice from a traveling circus. Princess Alice lived 69 years! In 1931, she frequently escaped from the zoo and was seen wandering on 700 East with clothing on her back from neighborhood clotheslines."

About the writers, and about 5 Blocks:

Coinciding with the 100 year anniversary of Hawthorne Elementary School, students in Sheri Sohm's 4th grade Extended Learning Program explored the neighborhood surrounding their school in an exciting discovery of the past and present. They examined buildings and structures, natural landscapes, and small things typically overlooked. Searching with their five senses, students explored their neighborhood as a living organism where people live and affect their community: a dynamic place of change.

Students met with members of the community, posing the question: Why do places change? The students uncovered how community decisions are made, and how they can become more actively involved in shaping their neighborhood.

After walking around their school and the surrounding Liberty Wells neighborhood, each student was assigned a house to closely examine. After taking photographs and completing a series of drawings, every student created a three-dimensional artistic vision of the house. In groups, students researched and prepared materials for the historical sites: Wilford Woodruff Houses, First Encampment Park, Perkins' Subdivision, and Chase Mill. The interesting facts they discovered are written on labels throughout the UMFA's 2012-13 5 Blocks installation, an exhibition of youth artwork created in collaboration with UMFA educators by students at Hawthorne Elementary (Salt Lake City School District) and Granger High School (Granite School District). By studying the visual stories in images from the Utah State Archives and Historical Society, students developed a deeper understanding of the places that once existed and the people who lived in the area.